Cushion townsendia is known in Montana from one presumed extant occurrence in Glacier National Park and three other historical collections from GNP and the Beartooth Mountains. Risks are likely minimal given the remoteness of its alpine habitat.

General Description

Cushion Townsendia is a small, stemless, perennial daisy which forms small cushions, usually less than 2 cm tall, from simple or branched rootstocks. Its leaves are narrowly to broadly spatula shaped, 6-15 mm long and 1-3 mm wide, and are loosely covered by long, woolly, multi-cellular hairs. The flowers are borne in stemless composite heads There are usually 3-5 series of linear to narrowly lance shaped involucre bracts. The strap-shaped corollas ("petals") of the ray flowers are white, pink, or lavender, and are 8-16 mm long. The disk flowers have shorter, yellow, tubular corollas. Both ray and disk corollas are encircled by a pappus of slender bristles. The achenes (dry, 1-seeded fruit) are 4.2-6.2 mm long and moderately hairy.

Phenology

Flowering occurs in July in the higher mountains, and has been noted as early as May in lower mountain ranges such as the Tendoy Range.

Diagnostic Characteristics

Townsendia spathulata is our only other stemless Townsendia with narrowly spoon-shaped rather than linear leaves; it also differs in that it has densely, long-hairy leaves, and the heads are usually less than 15 mm wide. Townsendia condensata and T. spathulata have been confused in some floristic treatments. The flower heads of T. condensata are nearly as large as the leaf rosettes.

(Observations spanning multiple months or years are excluded from time charts)

Habitat

The species inhabits open, rocky, often limestone-derived soil of exposed ridges and slopes near or above treeline. In Glacier National Park, it grows on the shingle of exposed ridges and slopes; reported associates include Eriogonum androsaceum and Dryas octopetala.